Now that I’ve decided what I want out of the server (and the hardware I’ve got), its time to workout what operating system to run the system on. Currently, ZEUS is running on Ubuntu Gutsy (7.10) which is running LVM with an XFS volume holding approximately 2.5Tb worth of data.
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After setting up the extras repository for OpenSolaris I tried to install VirtualBox via the package manager.
thushan@zeusy:~$ pfexec pkg install virtualbox Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pkg", line 2598, in ? __ret = main_func() File "/usr/bin/pkg", line 2541, in main_func return install(mydir, pargs) File "/usr/bin/pkg", line 710, in install update_index=update_index) File "/usr/lib/python2.
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I’ve been messing about with OpenSolaris (you’ll know why soon!) and decided to install the OpenSolaris Extras repository so I can grab the latest VirtualBox install from the repository. This repository has the following packages (as of writing) and is recommended if you plan on using VirtualBox:
NAME (PUBLISHER) VERSION STATE UFIX SUNWadmj (extra) 0.
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After a bit of digging around, my original spec’d hardware I’ve decided is too much for a boxen that will be on 24×7, especially with the rates for electricity going up next year – every little Watt counts. The existing 65W CPU isn’t ideal, instead I’m opting for a 45W CPU instead and this means – looking at the lineup, its going to be a walk down AMD way.
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I’ve been looking at upgrading our existing home server from the archaic (and unsupported!) Ubuntu Gutsy (because I was feeling gutsy at the time) to something newer, fresher and that will last me at least another 2 years. This is purely for my documentation.
Current Setup Currently running an AMD setup with Ubuntu Gutsy (7.
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Since ditching Outlook after Outlook 2003 (Outlook 2007, 2003 was fine in comparison) came around I’ve been using Mozilla Thunderbird as my ever faithful email client. Its fast, lightweight and not as bloated as Outlook is – couple it with Lightning and you’ll be laughing!
Thunderbird 3 brings some cool features for users with the biggest being tabbed message windows (and calendars etc).
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So today we had to move our clocks forward 1 hour (at 2am). Just realised that our Ubuntu box (zeus) was not displaying the right time to begin with (prior to the change). So to keep your computer clock in time with the world, use ntp.
sudo ntpdate [timeserver]
I use the Melbourne AAPT time-server but you can find another here or if your an aussie, use these:
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I’ve been reading up and keeping abreast of both the .NET world and Java world this year, both have some mighty exciting advancements coming – teaser: its all about the Pentiums! I’ll try and cover some of my research into parallel work later.
One of the other areas I’ve been keen on (after hearing from the leader of our pack, Mr Wolfe) was Scala and came across a incredibly useful resource by Daniel Spiewak on looking at Scala from a Java developers perspective.
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Here’s a little cookie from the cookie jar. To quote the legendary Jon Skeet from Threading with Windows Forms:
There are two different ways of invoking a method on the UI thread, one synchronous (Invoke) and one asynchronous (BeginInvoke). They work in much the same way – you specify a delegate and (optionally) some arguments, and a message goes on the queue for the UI thread to process.
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I recently took a look at the ANTS Memory Profiler 5.1 from RedGate software and posted my thoughts on it at the DeveloperFusion market place. Having toyed with several profilers in the past – DevPartner from Compuware (who’s now someone else who now owns the product) being my primary love since I first came across their .
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